The football gods were with Dos Pueblos over the weekend.
On Friday, the Chargers won at Ventura, tied for the Channel League title and won a vote of the league’s principals and athletic directors for one of the two automatic CIF-Southern Section playoff berths.
On Sunday, they were awarded the No. 4 seed in the Southern Section Division 10 playoffs and a first-round home game against Mission Prep of San Luis Obispo (4-5, Northern League No. 2) on Friday night.
Six football teams from the county received playoff berths when the pairings in 13 divisions were released Sunday. This is the first year of the competitive equity-based playoff system devised by the CIF. Lompoc is the highest placed county schools in the system at Division 4, Bishop Diego and St. Joseph are in Division 5, Santa Barbara in D-9, Dos Pueblos in D-10 and Carpinteria in D-12.
Santa Barbara, which tied with Dos Pueblos and Ventura for the Channel League title but lost the vote for the automatic berths, wound up getting an at-large bid in Division 9. The Dons (5-5), now the Golden Tornado for the postseason, will play at Agoura (3-7, Canyon, No. 1) in the first round.
Bishop Diego (7-3, Tri-Valley No. 1) drew a first-round home game against Salesian (6-4, Angelus No. 3) in Division 5 and Carpinteria (4-6, Frontier No. 2) received a spot in the Division 12 bracket and travel to St. Genevieve (9-1, Santa Fe No. 2) in Panorama City.
From the North County, undefeated and Los Padres League-champion Lompoc was seeded No. 2 in Division 4. The Braves (10-0) begin their playoff run at home against Carter (5-5 Citrus Belt No. 2) of Fontana. St. Joseph (6-4, LPL No. 2) plays at Fullerton-Troy (7-3, Freeway No. 3) in the Division 5 playoffs.
Santa Ynez, which went 8-2 but finished third in the five-team LPL, suffered the disappointment of being left out of the playoffs for the second straight year after posting a winning record — the Pirates were 7-3 last year. There were only two automatic berths in the league and no at-large spots available in Division 10.
There were seven at-large spots available in Division 9, and Santa Barbara was awarded one of them. The Golden Tornado (the team’s nickname for the playoffs) will be making their first playoff appearance since 2012. Their opponent, Agoura, was one of the teams that kept them out of the playoffs last year. Agoura was 1-9 but won a coin flip to break a three-way tie for second-place in the Canyon League and earned an automatic berth. Santa Barbara was left out with 6-4 mark.
Agoura won the Canyon League this year with a 3-0 record.
Santa Barbara coach JT Stone set up a stronger schedule this season to help his team’s playoff chances this season. Four of the five losses came against teams in higher divisions, and all four of those teams (Saugus, Lompoc, Pacifica and Ventura) made the playoffs.
Dos Pueblos (8-2) will making its first playoff appearance in five years. The Chargers have come back strong after losing 14-13 to Santa Barbara. Their impressive win at Ventura last Friday in the regular-season finale ended the Cougars’ five-year league winning streak.
Bishop Diego is playing its best football at the right now. The Cardinals pushed a strong Grace Brethren team to the limit before losing by 19-17 and routed Santa Paula 56-7. They have a playoff-experienced squad as most of the players were on the field in last year’s Northern Division semifinal game against Camarillo. Salesian will be a tough opponent. The Mustangs finished behind Division 3-seeded teams Cathedral and St. Francis in the Angelus League.
Carpinteria bounced back from its last-second loss to Fillmore by winning its last two Frontier League games in impressive fashion. The Warriors take on St. Genevieve team that lost only against St.Anthony’s, a Division 10 playoff team.
— Noozhawk sports editor Barry Punzal can be reached at bpunzal@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk Sports on Twitter: @NoozhawkSports. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
